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‘Would you believe it, the autumnal rains have brought forth in crop more bountiful than ever those accursed marshmallows,’ complained my great grandfather to his son in 1919, ‘the docks we utterly routed but the others will apparently plague and cumber the ground for years’. Would ancestral Irish knowledge have changed his tune?
Undated letter from John S. Meagher to Dr Frank Meagher
I came across a photo my cousin posted of herself with another cousin of ours on Instagram captioned, ‘Sticks and Squid’. I smiled as I instinctively knew which one was which. The nickname Sticks is new to me, whereas Squid is not too far removed from the nickname we used back in the day, Squiff or Squiffy. Sobriquets are an interesting form of family code, and to be honest, I’ve had a lot of fun unravelling who’s who. Now that I know about Sticks, it’s only right that Sticks’ name should stick, right?
Amid the first winter of the COVID-19 pandemic, I mailed two drawings of a garden scene to my seven-year-old niece (one coloured in, the other black and white). I asked her to add to a story I started about fairies in the garden and requested that she colour the black and white picture and return it. We exchanged a few drawings and developed the fairy story before our collective effort fizzled out.
During the second winter of the pandemic, in-between lockdowns four and five, I unexpectedly received an email from my niece (via her mother’s inbox) with a word document attached and a simple message.
Letter to Lux Meagher from Mary Meagher 1911 (page 1)
Writing about my great grandfather’s purchase of his property, Ikerrin, had me thinking about the origins of the common phrase, the ‘Great Australian Dream’. I wanted to know if it stemmed from the post war period in the 1950s, or was an earlier concept.
The ‘Great Australian Dream’ conjures a picture of a home of one’s own, suburban security, a three-bedroom brick veneer, trimmed lawns and backyard barbeques. This collectively held aspiration for home ownership gained traction in media and literature from the 1960s.
In light of all the volatility going on in the world, I find myself pining for wise, age-old, counsel. I need to chat to someone who has been through it all and there would be no one better qualified for that conversation than my great grandfather, John Sheehy Meagher.
“You can replace a partner, but you can never replace a mother”.
These words cut through the haze shrouding my existence. I was walking towards the gates of the Immaculate Conception Church, Hawthorn with a pastoral worker. Her words were spoken kindly, even maternally; it was followed with a genuinely concerned, “take care of yourself”. But the sentence, ‘you can never replace a mother’ seared my heart, and forewarned me of the pain ahead. Spoken by someone who knew deeply, the grief of losing a mother.
Old skeletons are highly sought after in the family historian’s closet. When I picture the closet of my recent ancestors, it is full of men’s suits, white lab coats and leather brogues. But if I think of the dark wooden closets of the Meagher women, there is barely a coat hanger to leave a clue about the women they were or the life they led. Their stories, aspirations and laments are hidden, unacknowledged or neglected, and I’ve spent years scrounging around for any loose thread I can find that might tell me of their histories. This is common for women across the ages and something that Women’s History Month seeks to address. Read more
When was the last time you did a jigsaw puzzle? The family archive in my spare room is the ultimate games room to me. Boxes upon boxes of various pieces waiting to be put together to create a new understanding of my family's collective history.
What Will Be looks back at people, places and travel and uncovers stories hidden in diaries, letters, and photos. It pieces together obvious clues and obscure details; reveals the personalities of people we used to know and those we could not have known; and re-tells the stories that have been forgotten or hidden. Tell me your thoughts and put a piece or two in the puzzle while you're at it.